To Keep a Promise

Caroline stacks three different flavors of jello and two cups of chocolate pudding onto the hospital lunch tray. She bends down to pick through the rows of chips, searching for the BBQ chips her mom likes. She picks up the bag, and no sooner as she stands, a hand ghosts the tray out of her grasp.

She stiffens. She can feel him in the air, so close to her. What the hell was he doing here? She closes her eyes and counts to ten before she freaks out. Opens her eyes again.

"Hello, love." He says, when she turns to him. He looks the same, black on black and a devestating smile. Except his eyes look sad today. They run over her, as if cataloguing every strand of hair, every freckle. Her skin rises with goosebumps and she turns away from him, snatches the tray. Starts briskly walking back to her mother's room. He follows close behind.

"What are you doing here, Klaus?" She sighs, knowing that no matter how much she would wish it, he was not going to just go away. "You made a promise." She references that night, the night. The night that had changed things between them forever.

"I did, and I had every intention of keeping it. At the time." He's in front of her now. They've stopped just outside her mom's room. She can hear her mom quietly laugh at something on TV. The sound almost makes her cry. Klaus takes the tray from her. He sets it down on the hospital chair outside of the door. When he looks at her again, all she can think about is throwing herself into his arms, having him hold her and promise that it would be okay until she believed it.

He reaches out, brushes a curl behind her ear. His fingers linger on her cheek, and he asks, so softly, "Did you really think I would let you be alone for this?"

Caroline sucks in a breath. "I'm okay." She lies. Her mom is dying but she's okay. She tells herself that she will be okay.

Klaus drops his hand, tilts his head, "I know your heart is breaking, Caroline." Tears prickle at the backs of her eyes at his words, but she just bites her lip and shakes her head.

She picks the tray up. "I'm okay." She says again. She opens the door and shuts it behind her, making it clear to him that he's not welcome. She rolls his eyes when he opens the door anyway.

Liz is half asleep, but she smiles when Caroline gives her a jello cup and a spoon. "My baby girl," she sighs, "always taking care of me."

Caroline smiles, eats her jello.

Klaus is a ghost, leaning against the wall beside the door. Intruding but not. He doesn't say a word. Just watches solemnly as Liz finishes her jello and tells Caroline she's tired and that she'd like a nap. Of course, Caroline chirps. She tucks the blankets around Liz, fluffs the pillow.

Klaus can tell by the look on her face that she's afraid her mother will fall asleep and never wake up. Liz looks haggard, and old. She had always reminded him of Caroline, what she could have been if it had not been for Katherine. Liz was strong and clever and full of love for her daughter. Liz didn't deserve this, to die this way, sick and in bed, the opposite of what was true to her character.

What's left of his dark heart aches for Caroline. For the indescribable pain she will be in when it's done. The girl in question touches his arm, "I need some air." She murmurs, "Do you mind...?" She looks back at her mom, sleeping soundly.

"Take a walk, love. Liz will be safe with me."

Caroline forces a smile, looks back at Liz once, and is gone.

Klaus comes closer to the bed, sits in the chair Caroline had occupied. He counts the wrinkles and laugh lines on the elder Forbes' face. He reaches out, touches her frail hand. Her eyes open instantly, zeroing in on him. He can't help but feel a strange kinship with her. They both love Caroline, completely.

"I was wondering when you'd show up." She says quietly. "I knew you wouldn't keep your promise."

Klaus' eyesbrows lift. "She told you about that?" He questions. He was under the assumption that they weren't supposed to tell anyone, like ever, as Caroline had put it. He wants to grin at the thought of her spilling the beans to her mom.

Liz cracks a smile, "She had to tell somebody. For what it's worth I'm glad you're here. She needs someone now that I'm... Now that I'm not going to be around. Caroline needs someone who loves her unconditionally. You know that she's her own biggest critic." Liz looks more like a Sheriff again, and Klaus admires the fierce love she has for her child. "Promise me that you'll watch out for her. I need to know that she'll be safe. Always. I may not be your biggest fan, but I know you care for her."

Klaus, uncharacteristically, as he seems to be around all of the Forbes women, takes her hand in his. Squeezes. He leans down to whisper, "Caroline will never want for anything. She will never be afraid, she will never be alone. You have my word."

Liz nods, "I'm dying. I know it, she knows it. It won't be long now. I know this is going to be hard on her. She feels everything so deeply. I don't want her to break, after I'm gone. I want her to know that even if she can't see me, that I'm there, that she is loved and she will always be loved. Will you tell her that? Will you tell her that when she really needs to hear it?" She looks at him, eyes hard and determined, and he realizes that this is all she has left. Her daughter. He envies the unrelenting love of a mother. He'd never had that.

"I promise." He says. "Caroline loves you very much." He tells her.

Liz chokes on a sob, "I love her very much." Tears spring from her eyes, and he holds her hand in silence as she cries.

Liz falls asleep a few minutes later, just as the door clicks open and Caroline steps in. She looks like she's been crying. Her eyes rake over Klaus' hand holding her mom's. She doesn't say anything. He stands, gives her back the chair.

He places his hands on her shoulders, "You'll be okay, Caroline. You're strong. Soon this pain you feel will be a distant memory, and you'll be able to think of your mother and not see her in a hospital bed." She looks away, her eyes scrunching.

It's time for him to leave now. He'd come to show his support, to let her know that he cared, deeply. He knows she needs this time with her mother, and he can't be here, clouding her head up.

He kisses her cheek, a soft goodbye. "Call me if you need anything. You know I will come."

"Thank you." She says softly, and his fingers draw down her arm as he walks away. He looks back one last time as Caroline crawls onto her mother's bed, wrapping her arms around the older woman's middle. She buries her face in Liz's golden hair, and Klaus shuts the door behind him.

Two weeks later, when he's in the middle of a sketch, his phone starts to ring shrilly. He answers it without glancing at the screen. "Yes?" He growls, grouchy at being interrupted.

"She's gone." Caroline's voice cracks through the phone.

Klaus sets his sketchbook aside, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Is there anything I can do for you?" He can hear her sniffling on the other end, and he can only imagine how much of a mess she is. She loves deeply and thoroughly and it always destroys her.

"Will you come? Here?" She's hesitant, but she's asking him come be with her, and he could never say no to that.

He thinks about the promise he'd made her dying mother. "I'm already on my way."